Non-motorised public transport : the past, the present, the future

Non-motorized public transport (NMPT) involves cycle-powered vehicles that carry several passengers and a small amount of goods; and provide flexible hail-and-ride services. Effectively they are non-motorized taxis. NMPT is widespread in developing countries, where it caters for a wide range of mobility needs. Common forms include cycle-rickshaw (Bangladesh, India), becak (Indonesia), cyclos (Vietnam, Cambodia), bicitaxi (Columbia, Cuba). Over the last 10-15 years there has also been a re-emergence of NMPT in the form of pedicabs in many developed countries because of the operating flexibility of NMPT, its eco-sustainability, and its ability to operate where use of motorized vehicles is restricted. In particular, in cities such as Berlin, London, New York and Vancouver, pedicabs are making the transition from ‘novelty’ to ‘serious’ transport mode. This is creating new transport policy/planning questions about pedicab operation and integration. This paper examines the phenomenon of NMPT and where it is heading. It uses case studies from Asia/Latin America and Europe/North America to examine emerging NMPT issues and possible responses, and how this may affect NMPT in Australia and New Zealand where it is still somewhat a ‘novelty’ but has potential as both an opportunity and a challenge.

Metadata aggregation : a critical component of research infrastructure for the future

The development of research data management infrastructure and services and making research data more discoverable and accessible to the research community is a key priority at the national, state and individual university level. This paper will discuss and reflect upon a collaborative project between Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology to commission a Metadata Hub or Metadata Aggregation service based upon open source software components. It will describe the role that metadata aggregation services play in modern research infrastructure and argue that this role is a critical one.

Franchise nations : the future of nations?

In this paper, I extend the notion of franchise nations, borrowed from Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (1993), in order to employ it as a device for thinking about the future of the nation. I argue the concept to be particularly well suited for such contemplation because of its sound grounding in the historical intermesh of economic, political and cultural motivations intrinsic to the concept as well as lived experience of the nation. I illustrate this very briefly by casting (mainland) China as the master franchisor and the overseas Chinese as franchisees. Specifically, I discuss the media events concerning China that took place during 2008, such as the protests and counter-protests that occurred at various legs of the Olympic Torch Relay, the Sichuan earthquake of 12 May and the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on 8 August, and reactions to these happenings from overseas Chinese located variously in Australia, Canada and the United States. I argue that employing the notion of franchise nations lays bare the commercial and political instrumentalism behind the promotion and courtship of diasporas by home nations but, crucially, also aids in the understanding of the reciprocal processes by which franchisees are fashioned out of these communities. Finally, I suggest that, aside from China, franchise nations may also be a useful approach for thinking about how nations like India and Singapore are expanded, exported and explained into the future.

Towards a comprehensive model of driver aggression : a review of the literature and directions for the future

Driver aggression is a road safety issue of growing concern throughout most highly motorised countries, yet to date there is no comprehensive model that deals with this issue in the road safety area. This paper sets out to examine the current state of research and theory on aggressive driving with a view to incorporating useful developments in the area of human aggression from mainstream psychological research. As a first step, evidence regarding the prevalence and incidence of driver aggression, including the impact of the phenomenon on crash rates is reviewed. Inconsistencies in the definition and operationalisation of driver aggression that have hampered research in the area are noted. Existing models of driver aggression are then identified and the need to distinguish and address the role of intentionality as well as the purpose of perpetrating behaviours within both these and research efforts is highlighted. Drawing on recent findings from psychological research into general aggression, it is argued that progress in understanding driver aggression requires models that acknowledge not only the person-related and situational factors, but the cognitive and emotional appraisal processes involved in driver aggression. An effective model is expected to allow the explanation of not only the likelihood and severity of driver aggression behaviours, but also the escalation of incidents within the context of the road environment.

'Radiant with possibility': involving young people in creating a vision for the future of their community

This paper argues that young people need to be given the opportunity to recognise the interaction between their own understandings of the world as it is now and the vision of what it might become. To support this argument, we discuss an urban planning project, known as the Lower Mill Site Project, which involved active participation of high school students from the local community. The outcomes of this project demonstrate the positive contributions young people can make to the process of urban redevelopment, the advantages of using a participatory design approach, and the utopian possibilities that can emerge when young people are invited to be part of an intergenerational community project.

Airports of the future : incident response planning in Australian airports

Airports are typical examples of large and complex infrastructure systems. They serve a purpose of not only transporting people around the globe but are central to trade and commerce and, in a nation as large as Australia, an important means to connect people and regions. Reducing uncertainty and managing risk in such systems are not only critical tasks integral to effective management practice but equally important for border protection and national security outcomes. This latter issue has been emphasised on a national level in Australia with a number of recent enquiries taking place, most notably the Wheeler Review1 into aviation security in 2005 and the 2009 National Aviation Policy White Paper2 on the future of aviation in Australia.

The future of entrepreneurship research

In the summer of 2008, the Jönköping International Business School invited a selection of prominent (and not yet past-zenith) scholars of our field to a workshop at which they were asked to present their visions about where the future of entrepreneurship research is headed. An important inspiration for this initiative was a similar gathering in Jönköping 10 years earlier, which led to a special issue of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice that has become one of the most cited in the history of the journal (see Davidsson, Low, &Wright, 2001). Similarly, the current special issue is based on the ideas that were first presented at the 2008 workshop, although they have since been thoroughly discussed and developed through extensive commentary and revisions.

Unpacking Japan's 21st century "National Conversation" : images of the future beyond the iron cage of the "Catch Up" model

How does the image of the future operate upon history, and upon national and individual identities? To what extent are possible futures colonized by the image? What are the un-said futurecratic discourses that underlie the image of the future? Such questions inspired the examination of Japan’s futures images in this thesis. The theoretical point of departure for this examination is Polak’s (1973) seminal research into the theory of the ‘image of the future’ and seven contemporary Japanese texts which offer various alternative images for Japan’s futures, selected as representative of a ‘national conversation’ about the futures of that nation. These seven images of the future are: 1. Report of the Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century—The Frontier Within: Individual Empowerment and Better Governance in the New Millennium, compiled by a committee headed by Japan’s preeminent Jungian psychologist Kawai Hayao (1928-2007); 2. Slow Is Beautiful—a publication by Tsuji Shinichi, in which he re-images Japan as a culture represented by the metaphor of the sloth, concerned with slow and quality-oriented livingry as a preferred image of the future to Japan’s current post-bubble cult of speed and economic efficiency; 3. MuRatopia is an image of the future in the form of a microcosmic prototype community and on-going project based on the historically significant island of Awaji, and established by Japanese economist and futures thinker Yamaguchi Kaoru; 4. F.U.C.K, I Love Japan, by author Tanja Yujiro provides this seven text image of the future line-up with a youth oriented sub-culture perspective on that nation’s futures; 5. IMAGINATION / CREATION—a compilation of round table discussions about Japan’s futures seen from the point of view of Japan’s creative vanguard; 6. Visionary People in a Visionless Country: 21 Earth Connecting Human Stories is a collection of twenty one essays compiled by Denmark born Tokyo resident Peter David Pedersen; and, 7. EXODUS to the Land of Hope, authored by Murakami Ryu, one of Japan’s most prolific and influential writers, this novel suggests a future scenario portraying a massive exodus of Japan’s youth, who, literate with state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICTs) move en masse to Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido to launch a cyber-revolution from the peripheries. The thesis employs a Futures Triangle Analysis (FTA) as the macro organizing framework and as such examines both pushes of the present and weights from the past before moving to focus on the pulls to the future represented by the seven texts mentioned above. Inayatullah’s (1999) Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is the analytical framework used in examining the texts. Poststructuralist concepts derived primarily from the work of Michel Foucault are a particular (but not exclusive) reference point for the analytical approach it encompasses. The research questions which reflect the triangulated analytic matrix are: 1. What are the pushes—in terms of current trends—that are affecting Japan’s futures? 2. What are the historical and cultural weights that influence Japan’s futures? 3. What are the emerging transformative Japanese images of the future discourses, as embodied in actual texts, and what potential do they offer for transformative change in Japan? Research questions one and two are discussed in Chapter five and research question three is discussed in Chapter six. The first two research questions should be considered preliminary. The weights outlined in Chapter five indicate that the forces working against change in Japan are formidable, structurally deep-rooted, wide-spread, and under-recognized as change-adverse. Findings and analyses of the push dimension reveal strong forces towards a potentially very different type of Japan. However it is the seven contemporary Japanese images of the future, from which there is hope for transformative potential, which form the analytical heart of the thesis. In analyzing these texts the thesis establishes the richness of Japan’s images of the future and, as such, demonstrates the robustness of Japan’s stance vis-à-vis the problem of a perceived map-less and model-less future for Japan. Frontier is a useful image of the future, whose hybrid textuality, consisting of government, business, academia, and creative minority perspectives, demonstrates the earnestness of Japan’s leaders in favour of the creation of innovative futures for that nation. Slow is powerful in its aim to reconceptualize Japan’s philosophies of temporality, and build a new kind of nation founded on the principles of a human-oriented and expanded vision of economy based around the core metaphor of slowness culture. However its viability in Japan, with its post-Meiji historical pushes to an increasingly speed-obsessed social construction of reality, could render it impotent. MuRatopia is compelling in its creative hybridity indicative of an advanced IT society, set in a modern day utopian space based upon principles of a high communicative social paradigm, and sustainability. IMAGINATION / CREATION is less the plan than the platform for a new discussion on Japan’s transformation from an econo-centric social framework to a new Creative Age. It accords with emerging discourses from the Creative Industries, which would re-conceive of Japan as a leading maker of meaning, rather than as the so-called guzu, a term referred to in the book meaning ‘laggard’. In total, Love Japan is still the most idiosyncratic of all the images of the future discussed. Its communication style, which appeals to Japan’s youth cohort, establishes it as a potentially formidable change agent in a competitive market of futures images. Visionary People is a compelling image for its revolutionary and subversive stance against Japan’s vision-less political leadership, showing that it is the people, not the futures-making elite or aristocracy who must take the lead and create a new vanguard for the nation. Finally, Murakami’s Exodus cannot be ruled out as a compelling image of the future. Sharing the appeal of Tanja’s Love Japan to an increasingly disenfranchised youth, Exodus portrays a near-term future that is achievable in the here and now, by Japan’s teenagers, using information and communications technologies (ICTs) to subvert leadership, and create utopianist communities based on alternative social principles. The principal contribution from this investigation in terms of theory belongs to that of developing the Japanese image of the future. In this respect, the literature reviews represent a significant compilation, specifically about Japanese futures thinking, the Japanese image of the future, and the Japanese utopia. Though not exhaustive, this compilation will hopefully serve as a useful starting point for future research, not only for the Japanese image of the future, but also for all image of the future research. Many of the sources are in Japanese and their English summations are an added reason to respect this achievement. Secondly, the seven images of the future analysed in Chapter six represent the first time that Japanese image of the future texts have been systematically organized and analysed. Their translation from Japanese to English can be claimed as a significant secondary contribution. What is more, they have been analysed according to current futures methodologies that reveal a layeredness, depth, and overall richness existing in Japanese futures images. Revealing this image-richness has been one of the most significant findings of this investigation, suggesting that there is fertile research to be found from this still under-explored field, whose implications go beyond domestic Japanese concerns, and may offer fertile material for futures thinkers and researchers, Japanologists, social planners, and policy makers.

Mission unreachable : how Jaman is shaping the future of on-line distribution

Perhaps the most innovative of all independent OLD ventures specialising in ROW content is Jaman. Founded in 2007 by IT entrepreneur Gaurav Dhillon, and based in San Mateo, California, Jaman is a quality specialist distributor of non-Hollywood films. As of late 2010, Jaman had 1.8 million registered users and attracts viewers from most countries in the world. 75% of all use is generated from outside the U.S. Jaman does very well in English speaking parts of the world, particularly current and former Commonwealth countries. The United Kingdom accounts for 29% of users, North America (U.S. and Canada) 26%, and India represents 23%. Jaman is sometimes referred to as ‘social cinema’: a website which brings together the critique and review of a cinephile website (the forums of Rue-morgue.com for cinefantastique movie fans for example) with the social interaction, community and functionality of a social media site (for example Facebook.com). Jaman could be considered a pioneer in this space; a first mover in wrapping commercial movie downloading in an interactive social experience.

Health Librarianship Workforce and Education : Research to plan the future. Final Report.

In late 2009, Health Libraries Australia (HLA) received a small grant to undertake a national research project to determine the future requirements for health librarians in the workforce in Australia and develop a structured, modular education framework (post-graduate qualification and continuing professional development structure) to meet these requirements. The main objective was to consider the education and professional development framework that would ensure that health librarians have a clearly defined scope of practice and the specific competency based knowledge and skills that enable them to contribute to the design and delivery of high quality health services in this country. The final report presents a detailed discussion of the changing Australian healthcare environment and the resulting impact on the health library sector, as well as an overview of international trends in health libraries and the implications for Australian health librarianship education. The research methodology is outlined, followed by an analysis of the findings from the two surveys with health librarians and health library managers and the semi-structured interviews conducted with employers. The Medical Library Association (MLA) in the United States had developed a policy document detailing the competencies required by health librarians. It was found that the MLA competencies represented an accepted professional framework of skills which could be used objectively in the survey instrument to measure the areas of professional knowledge and responsibilities that were relevant in the current workplace, and to identify how these requirements might change in the next three to five years. The research results underscore the imperative for health librarians to engage in regular, relevant professional development activities that will enable them to stay abreast with the rapid contextual changes impacting on their practice. In order to be accepted as key members of the multi-disciplinary health professional team, it is strongly believed that health librarians should commit to establishing the mechanisms for specialist certification maintained through compulsory CPD in an ongoing three-year cycle of revalidation. This development would align ALIA and health librarians with other health sector professional associations which are responsible for the self regulation of entry to and continuation in their profession.

The future of the internet economy : addressing challenges facing the implementation of the Australian national broadband network

Innovation is vital for the future of Australia.s internet economy. Innovations rely on businesses. ability to innovate. Businesses. ability to innovate relies on their employees. The more these individual end users engage in the internet economy, the better businesses. engagement will be. The less these individual end users engage, the less likely a business is to engage and innovate. This means, for the internet economy to function at its fullest potential, it is essential that individual Australians have the capacity to engage with it and participate in it. The Australian federal government is working to facilitate the internet economy through policies, legislation and practices that implement high-speed broadband. The National Broadband Network will be a vital tool for Australia.s internet economy. Its .chief importance¡® is that it will provide faster internet access speeds that will facilitate access to internet services and content. However, an appropriate infrastructure and internet speed is only part of the picture. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development identified, appropriate government policies are also needed to ensure that vital services are more accessible by consumers. The thesis identifies essential theories and principles underpinning the internet economy and from which the concept of connectedness is developed. Connectedness is defined as the ability of end users to connect with internet content and services, other individuals and organisations, and government. That is, their ability to operate in the internet economy. The NBN will be vital in ensuring connectedness into the future. What is not currently addressed by existing access regimes is how to facilitate end user access capacity and participation. The thesis concludes by making recommendations to the federal government as to what the governing principles of the Australian internet economy should include in order to enable individual end user access capacity.